Alright folks, this thread is going no where fast. This TIM testing is dividing our community and there is no need for it.
It is clear that some have had problems and others have not. Please - try to remain civil in your posts

I thought people would benefit from both an understanding of 'how' to remove ICD and irrefutable proof that IC Diamond does not damage the IHS markings.

A test model was developed to demonstrate a worst case contact scenario of a high pressure heat sink/IHS mount with IC Diamond as the interface material against surface coating fragile enough to be an indicator of surface polishing under extreme conditions

For a demonstration to prove that IC Diamond does not damage IHS markings we needed a surface coating/finish that was much thinner than the 1 or 2 micron lettering found on Intel and AMD IHS. A number of potential candidates were ruled out. Paint was no good as it reacted to solvents on a clean up and was too thick thinner, non reactive coatings Like AR (anti reflective) and anodized aluminum while thin enough, were too hard for an adequate comparison.

We finally settled on an oxidized copper sheet. Copper oxidation growth in an open, natural, rural weather environment proceeds at a very slow rate of perhaps .5 microns a year . So on some copper sheet that's been sitting around in our lab a couple of years and in an interior , air - conditioned environment, you can anticipate oxide growth to be 1/10 of an exterior exposure. We had the ideal situation, oxidized copper with a coating of .1 to .2 microns. and with IHS serial markings that have a estimated thickness of just 1 to 2 microns, the copper oxide coating represents approx 10-20 % the thickness of the the manufacturer serial markings, Additionally is soft enough to polish back to its original shine with nothing more abrasive than a finger, in less than 5 seconds.

The test set up simulates application of IC Diamond on a contact area approximately equal to to an IHS on a 5 X 5 inch oxidized copper sheet.

The copper oxide simulates, at a lower extreme, the 1-2 micron thickness of manufacturers serial markings which are 80 to 90% thicker by comparison to the oxide surface finish.

The 30mm X 3mm thick copper block is to model base heat sink contact to which the IC diamond compound is applied.

IC Diamond is then applied to the 30mm square modeled heat sink base and clamped with the spring clamps to the test piece a together at the maximum clamp jaw extension of close to 2 inches to the scale to simulate what you would experience with a heat sink and IHS contacted under pressure with IC Diamond as an interface.

Test notes:

This test case represents an extreme worst case scenario, room temperature, copper oxide surface finishes are very different from high temperature thermally generated ones and are easily marked with sub copper MOHS (3) hard materials like a fingernail, paper, piece of wood, etc.

Solvents in thermal compound removal are used to replace and/or ease mechanical action required to remove a material that has good mechanical adhesion (good mechanical contact = good thermal transfer).

Most thermal compounds have exactly the same primary ingredient ( Aluminum oxide) as a lapping compound or sandpaper (Aluminum oxide), while diamond is hard (MOHS 10) it is only incrementally so, aluminum oxide (mohs 9) is actually the preferred cutting agent used by the glass industry. According to these products MSDS's Shin Etsu, AS5, MX4 etc. all contain significant %'s of aluminum oxide.

Despite the highly abrasive nature of these materials when correctly applied and removed no issues should be encountered. Countless how-to videos have been observed by Innovation Cooling where the presenter squirts out some cleaning agent and then begins to vigorously scrub the piece much like they cleaning a frying pan. This clearly shows a lack of understanding of basic, common shop practice.

Good shop practice is to let the solvent do the mechanical work to re-liquefy and remove the compound as above by blotting with a solvent saturated paper towel till compound is fully dissolved . Once dissolved, the compound is lifted or loosened from the contact surface *and easily removed with a single wipe or two without abrasion. This works with even the hardest most dried out compound it just requires a little more patience.

Below is the cleaned piece with no evidence of any marking or damage to the .1-.2 micron thick surface

Under extreme conditions the test performed here was above the manufacturer's maximum load specifications on a material much softer than manufacturer's serial markings on an IHS (as an at home test try removing the markings on your CPU with finger abrasion) and on the order of 10-20% of the thickness of typical IHS markings.

Final test result showed no scratches, no polishing and no visible abrasion of any kind.

When the compound is properly applied and removed, the typical high end user will experience zero problems with multiple heat sink mounts and dismounts independent of any external mechanical factors not related to recommended thermal compound application and removal procedure.

I would note that demonstrations of proper removal were performed here by one moar in his live video and FullFusion in his video posted earlier in the thread where they encountered no problems and are great examples of how to do it properly and are referenced here for those that need instruction.

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Repeat these tests using something polished or nickel please. Your choice of copper plate is rather rough. Also try using a tripod, good lighting and a macro setting on the camera. While I didn't have any issues with the paste I received, the amount of folks having issues leads me to believe that it is not their process or heatsinks causing the issues.

For those who did have issues with this product, I would like to see some pictures, preferably with the paste spread out on a sheet of white paper and check for any kind of particles or other inconsistencies.

Repeat these tests using something polished or nickel please. Your choice of copper plate is rather rough. Also try using a tripod, good lighting and a macro setting on the camera. While I didn't have any issues with the paste I received, the amount of folks having issues leads me to believe that it is not their process or heatsinks causing the issues.

For those who did have issues with this product, I would like to see some pictures, preferably with the paste spread out on a sheet of white paper and check for any kind of particles or other inconsistencies.

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i still have some left i can try to spread it out, but i only experienced a nasty smell and staining and the ihs letters got lighter on the ihs but that cpu has been sold

You know I have been keeping up with this thread and have been just strugging most of the complaints aside as I installed this stuff on a few of my systems and it performed well so cool, but lately I was noticing a very obvious drop in my old laptop(a precision m6300) which i was testing this stuff on.

So I disassemble it and start to remove it, bam fishy smell(I think its caused by friction but who cares its only a smell), but as soon as I start to take it off it starts scratching the die on the cpu ever so slightly and left a minor blemish on it and I was just like wtf, I have used dozens of other tims for years and only had that happen with anything but the cheapest stuff(ebay garbage) and a few of the liquid metals.

Had one more heatsink to go, because this has an old 7950GTX in it and this is where I am somewhat not happy, very very obvious blemishing, and more scratching, I am just surprised that what some of you were saying was actually true, very surprised.

If you guys install this stuff do the die directly, remove it very carefully.

maybe its because they were soft

I don't know, no pics either, not in the mood.

but based on the performance on my desktops I still wouldn't think its that bad as long as you have an ihs(as long as those are not damaged) but on a die directly, not a chance in hell man.

I have temporarily closed the thread, I beleive it is descending into a bit of a mess with the Pro and negative experience and at times is getting out of hand.

I welcome the hard evidence from investigations that the company is currently carrying out on Sneekypeet's cooler and no doubt others, it is clear that they are attempting to resolve things and I look forward to a honest and open response, at which time I will re-open the thread so the results can be posted here for the community to see and hopefully move forward.... thank you.

Notice how the stain is only on the copper heatpipes? I'm assuming there's something that makes the paste react to copper. It would be good if ICDiamond could do a test where they could simulate what happens if their TIM is used on copper bases for a prolonged period of time.

No damages only staining and a weird smell from the paste just like what some of the other members here are reporting. I've since gon back to using Tuniq TX-4.

and on the smell no I didnt put my nose near it just from removing the wb and the smell came out

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I will go ahead and pull the sink after my deployment so everyone can see if it pitted the shiny nickle bottom of my CM V10. Has high RPM fans, is huge and has ICD under it. If anything is going to cause problems it is. Hell it shipped from the US to were I am now in my luggage so you know it was tossed around.

I will go ahead and pull the sink after my deployment so everyone can see if it pitted the shiny nickle bottom of my CM V10. Has high RPM fans, is huge and has ICD under it. If anything is going to cause problems it is. Hell it shipped from the US to were I am now in my luggage so you know it was tossed around.

I'd like to point out to people rushing to check their sinks and IHS for scratches who might not have been paying attention before - scratching and light gouging is normal regardless of paste. Especially on those polished high pressure sinks. If you want to be confident in your complaint I'd take before and after pics mounting with another paste, and then again with ICD.

I'd like to point out to people rushing to check their sinks and IHS for scratches who might not have been paying attention before - scratching and light gouging is normal regardless of paste. Especially on those polished high pressure sinks. If you want to be confident in your complaint I'd take before and after pics mounting with another paste, and then again with ICD.

I'd just like to see some harder to question results in this thread.

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Thats a very good point, I would also like to hear of the results of several weeks of testing IC Diamond have been completing on coolers with these claims, it seems our IC Diamond rep visits here most days but has not as yet updated us.

I'd like to point out to people rushing to check their sinks and IHS for scratches who might not have been paying attention before - scratching and light gouging is normal regardless of paste. Especially on those polished high pressure sinks. If you want to be confident in your complaint I'd take before and after pics mounting with another paste, and then again with ICD.

I'd just like to see some harder to question results in this thread.

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In the past I used IC Diamond with confidence but don't anymore due to damage my block and die suffered from about a month of usage of IC Diamond.

The surface of block and die was like new before using IC Diamond.

photos from the problem that I had that I think was created by some chunky diamond crystals were in my IC Diamond.

Pit in block

Mark on die with some micro scratches.

If you use IC Diamond I think it is a good idea to check for damage before it gets worse. I feel lucky I checked mine after a month. With more time more damage may have have occurred.